


You Were Born of My Mother

by theorangewitch



Series: Angstober [11]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mentions of Slavery, Mentions of kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-08-01 04:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16278143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorangewitch/pseuds/theorangewitch
Summary: The older Asherah grows, the less she remembers of her mother’s face. She knows that it was like hers, brown and soft, her white eyes set into it, two pearls half buried in sand. She knows that her mother’s hair fell past her hips and carried with it a wavy buoyancy, floating as if on top of water. But the rest of her runs together, Asherah’s only memories of her being obscured by the backlighting of the island sun, so that her face cannot be seen.





	You Were Born of My Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Day 12 of Angstober - Forced Apart! Asherah's adult life is partially explored in Day 4 - Jealousy. She was my first D&D character and I love her and miss her.
> 
> A link to the full Angstober challenge can be found in the author's note of the first work in this series.

The older Asherah grows, the less she remembers of her mother’s face. She knows that it was like hers, brown and soft, her white eyes set into it, two pearls half buried in sand. She knows that her mother’s hair fell past her hips and carried with it a wavy buoyancy, floating as if on top of water. But the rest of her runs together, Asherah’s only memories of her being obscured by the backlighting of the south island sun, so that her face cannot be seen.

She knows that they lived high on a limestone cliff in a cottage that overlooked the sea. The cottage had been abandoned when her mother arrived there from her former home, but she’d fixed it up so that when she gave birth to her daughter, said daughter would be able to grow up comfortably. Another thing that Asherah remembers about her mother is her beauty. Well, how everyone would talk about how beautiful she was. The baker in town asked her to marry him almost weekly, and the mayor’s wife cooed about how lucky Asherah was that looked just like her. 

Her mother would carry her on her shoulders down the cliff and into town, where she would trade the vegetables they grew in the garden behind their cottage for bread and clothing. Asherah would wave at everyone they passed, and they would always wave back. Asherah and her mother were the only two tieflings in town, possibly on the whole island, but they were treated with the utmost respect anyway. The people of their island were a kind folk, but Asherah’s mother’s beauty and gentle demeanor didn’t hurt.

Asherah doesn’t remember her mother’s name, either. Her mother was teaching her how to say it and spell it (it was a long, somewhat complicated name) when they were separated. It started with an ‘O’, or maybe a ‘Y’, Asherah doesn’t know, but she’s been keeping her ears peeled for it ever since she escaped Athkatla. 

Asherah was five years old when she was kidnapped and sold into slavery to a wealthy man in Amn. She rarely strayed far from the area of the town market where her mother had staked her claim as a vegetable merchant, but she saw something off in the crowd. A golden butterfly, unlike any she’d ever seen before, fluttering between the heads of the people perusing the marketplace. She found herself inexplicably drawn towards it, and she walked as if in a trance towards it. It landed on her hand, so light she couldn’t feel it at all, shedding a soft glow onto her fingers. 

And then it exploded. Not violently, but it took her by surprise when the butterfly shattered in a puff of illusory golden dust. Before she could properly react, and at the time she couldn’t understand that the butterfly had been an illusion, a huge, muscular arm wrap around her waist and pull her close to a burly chest. A hand clapped over her mouth, but she stretched and wriggled and pulled her face free in time to scream, “MAMA!” The man carrying her bolted, tucking her under his arm like an unruly goose. Nobody in the crowd reacted, not quickly enough, and the man barreled through them and down towards the bay. Asherah could see her mother as the man got farther and farther away from the market. She was pushing through the crowd, yelling, “Someone stop him! Someone help me! Someone help me save my little girl! Someone save my Asherah!” 

But no one moved. Or maybe Asherah couldn’t see through her terrified tears, her tunnel vision obscuring everyone except for her mother’s panicked expression, hear ears deaf to everything except for her mother’s horrified cries. 

And that was the last time she saw her. She never went back to the island where she was born. She didn’t know where it was. She never searched for her mother, not actively. It was a big, wide world. She could be anywhere. Or nowhere at all. 


End file.
